


for what it's worth

by ShowMeAHero



Series: piece by piece [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Pregnancy, The Force, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans non-binary character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28799544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: “Luke,” Leia says sharply. He turns to meet her eye, finally, and she’s stern, but not as firm as he feels. There’s only so long he can do this, after all, and he’s not about to waste time or— or show weakness before he absolutely has to.“I can do this,” Luke tells her. “I have to do this.” He squeezes her hand, then pulls it off his arm. “Leia, it’sfine.”“I’m going to kick yourasswhen you get back here,” Leia growls at him.“Don’t tell Dinanything."
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Series: piece by piece [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2111538
Comments: 20
Kudos: 282





	for what it's worth

**Author's Note:**

> din is trans nonbinary they/them and luke is trans male he/him and that's that on that

Luke doesn't know who to tell first when he finds out he's pregnant, so he doesn't tell anyone.

Instead, he panics, and he puts it off. Then, he panics about putting off, and puts it off even longer, and it just gets _worse,_ snowballing into a big knot of _garbage._ Luke has no idea what to do about it; mentally, he resolves on doing nothing until his hand is forced.

Leia is the one who ends up enticing him out of his house with the promise of good news. Din is perceptive — _too_ perceptive, and Luke is walking on eggshells in his desperate and fragile need to keep his secret. He doesn’t even know _why_ he is, fully, anymore. Just— The deeper into it he gets, the harder it becomes to just _tell_ them.

Most of all, he doesn’t want to fuck up the delicate balance he has. Maintaining the village on Yavin IV, training the younglings, trying to be a good brother to Leia and a good friend to Han and a good parent to Grogu and a good partner to Din. Now, he’s trying to be a good parent to his own baby, and nobody even knows they exist but him.

It’s just a _lot,_ so. If Leia has good news, Luke wants to hear it. It’d be a good distraction from the rest of it.

“You look horrible,” she tells him, when he shows up on her front steps.

“Thanks,” he says. “You don’t look any better,” he adds, because she doesn’t. “Do you want something to eat?”

“No, thanks, I’m good,” she says, in a way that suggests she’d rather gargle nails, but she still pulls her front door shut behind herself.

“Where are we going?” he asks, but she just motions down their little road. Their village garden is only a few doors down, the greenhouse set back from the dirt roadway, and it’s there that Leia leads him. The plants that grow there are exotic and unfamiliar; the greenhouse is hot in an overwhelmingly damp way, more like Dagobah than Tatooine.

“It’s nice in here, isn’t it?” Leia asks. “Like summer.”

“Maybe summer where _you’re_ from,” Luke comments.

“Right, because you grew up in the sand wastes,” she shoots back. When he glances at her, she’s already making a face at him. “What’s been bothering you?”

“Nothing’s been bothering me,” he insists, because he’s been doing that for months now. “What’s bothering _you?”_

“I think I’m pregnant,” Leia tells him. Luke feels like his entire brain comes to a halt, all thoughts flying out and leaving him completely blank. He has no idea how to process that.

Instead of processing it, Luke just paces away from Leia to a bed of hot pink flowers. They’re still open, but Luke knows from experience that they’ll close up the higher the sun gets in the sky. He catches one of the flowers in his flesh hand, runs his thumb over a thin-soft pink petal. His brain still doesn’t fully come back online, but he does start thinking that— if _Leia_ can do it, why can’t _he?_

“Are you okay?” Leia asks. “I kinda thought you’d be excited.”

“What did Han say?” Luke asks, before he even thinks about it. On reflection, he’s not sure it’s a great response, or even a good question. Still, he can’t bring himself to take it back.

“I haven’t told him yet,” Leia says. “I think he’s going to blow his top, though. He’ll be fine in the end.”

“I’ll make sure,” Luke promises her.

“You can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do,” Leia reminds him. “He’s a— You know, he’s Han, but he takes responsibility when it counts. And he doesn’t hate life here.”

Luke’s eyes stay trained downwards on the petals. Still, he nods; he feels more than hears Leia come to his side, but then she’s right next to him, hovering but not touching. Luke has never felt more like an island. He can’t get himself to reach out, even though he _wants_ it, more than anything. This is his _sister;_ he should be able to tell her, to confess, to be honest _now_ of all times.

“Luke?” Leia asks. “You’re kind of freaking me out. I didn’t think you’d—”

“No, no, I’m sorry, I just got taken off guard,” Luke hurries to say. He can hear the drop in Leia’s mood in her tone, can feel the reverberations of her fear, and it’s too much layered on top of his own. When he turns to Leia, he releases the flowers, and instead takes her hands in his. “I’m so happy for you, Leia, that’s _amazing!_ When you say you _think,_ I mean, what do you— What do you mean?”

“I mean the medical droids told me I’m pregnant,” Leia tells him. Her stop feels more like a pause.

“What?” Luke asks.

“Can you feel them?” Leia asks. Luke looks from her hands to her face, to her deep brown eyes so unlike his own. He wonders if their mother had brown eyes like hers. Right now, it’s almost disorienting, to imagine their mother going through the same thing Leia is going through. The same thing they’re both going through, if only Luke would tell anyone else. “My baby.”

Luke hesitates. Leia must see it in his face, because she starts to pull away, starts to apologize, but Luke tightens his grip on her hands.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” she says. “If I was meant to know anything about them, I’d know. There’s a reason we can’t see through skin—”

“No, it’s okay,” Luke assures her. Leia’s expression doesn’t change, still hesitantly hopeful, still waiting for his response in full. “Give me a minute, I can look.”

Leia nods, squeezing his hands. Luke closes his eyes and reaches for her energy instead of her body; there is more energy flowing through and around her than there was the last time he checked in on her like this. It’s not a consciousness like theirs is, but the Force is powerful around them. It’s the beginning of a new life, but more than that, it’s a strong one. His own energy rattles, and he withdraws from his sister. In an instant of impulse, he turns his observations inwards. The same energy exists inside himself.

The sensation is just as content as Leia is. It satisfies Luke, if nothing else, as he separates his mind from the minds around his, sliding back into his own brain. It makes him feel smaller again, but the Force always flows through him, stronger all the time; he’s never quite just himself anymore, anyways.

“They’re so strong,” Luke tells her. He opens his eyes and sees her face beneath his, face flushed and eyes wide, excited. More than anything else, he wants her to be happy.

“Yeah?” she asks. “They’re doing alright?”

“More than alright,” Luke assures her. “I can feel them— They’re strong like you, or me.”

“Like our dad?” Leia asks, half a joke.

“You’re stronger than him,” Luke tells her, because she is, in all the ways that matter.

“But everything is okay?” she asks.

“I’m not a doctor,” he reminds her, “but I can tell you you’re pregnant. If you’re not, you’ve got a parasite.”

Leia laughs breathlessly. Luke pulls her into a hug; near his ear, she says, still laughing, “Any child of Han’s is a parasite for sure.”

“Half-parasite,” Luke says.

“Hopefully our genes are stronger than that.” Leia separates them, claps Luke on the shoulders lightly, grinning at him. “That’s something else, isn’t it? Me with a kid?”

“You’ll be amazing at it,” Luke assures her.

“I always thought you’d be better at it,” Leia comments. Luke’s heart races all over again, hand sweating. Leia catches his wrists and pulls him back in before he can withdraw from her.

“I’m—” Luke starts, then stops. Leia catches his hands in hers.

“What is it?” she asks. “You can tell me, Luke. I promise. You’re going to be alright.”

“Me, too,” Luke tells her. Leia furrows her brow; Luke wonders, again, if their mother ever did something like that. He wonders if their children might, too, and the thought catches him so off-guard — the thought of Leia with a child, the thought of him with a child of his own, of someone he’s responsible for besides himself, a task he can hardly handle.

“You, too?” Leia asks, when Luke forgets to elaborate.

“Me, too,” Luke repeats. He looks away from her, because she feels too bright to look at when he’s trying to hold it together. “I just— I didn’t know how to tell anyone, and I should’ve— I should’ve told Din first, shouldn’t I?”

“Hey, wait, slow down,” Leia stops him. “How pregnant are you?”

“I don’t know,” he tells her miserably. “A few months.”

“Luke,” she says, and he comes crashing down into her. She holds him up and supports him back to the warm stone bench between the clusters of hot pink flowers, closing up as the sun climbs higher and higher. The only comfort Luke can find is in burying himself in his sister’s side, letting her wrap around him.

He just tries to keep his breathing even, tries to keep himself even as she rubs his back over and over. He stares hard at the petals of one plant and just— doesn’t think about anything else except breathing, for a moment.

“It’s going to be okay,” she promises him. “It will. What’s got you panicking so much?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Luke tells her. “Once I tell Din, we’ll have to do— do _something,_ unless they’re not interested in that. Then I— I’ll have to figure it out by myself, and I don’t know the first thing that I—”

“Wait, _wait,_ stop it,” Leia cuts him off. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.” She pulls back from him, takes his face in her hands to tip it up towards hers. “You’re freaking out because you’re trying to do everything at once, Luke. You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m thinking ahead.”

“You’re overwhelming yourself,” Leia tells him. “You’re not having this kid tomorrow. You’ve got time, but you’re running it out by not telling them. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know that,” Luke says, almost petulant. Frustrated, he pulls away from her. “I just— It’s bad enough I made them stay here—”

“You didn’t _make_ anyone do anything,” Leia says.

“I kind of did.”

“The idea that anyone can make Din Djarin do anything they don’t want to do is laughable to me,” she tells him. Luke doesn’t say anything for long enough that Leia adds, “You know I’m right.”

“I know,” he says. He groans, then leans forward, drops his head into his hands. The ever-present ache there persists even as he rubs at his temples. “I _know.”_

The greenhouse door crashes open. Both of them jump; the pilot standing in the doorway says, “I’m sorry, Master Skywalker, they sent me to find you—”

“Who?” Luke asks, rising to his feet.

“Captain Solo and the crew onboard the _Falcon,”_ the pilot tells him. Leia’s right behind Luke in following him out of the greenhouse and to the hangar at the edge of their settlement. “They sent a distress beacon and asked for you specifically.”

“Play me the message,” Luke instructs the pilot. He points to the droid beside the _Red Five,_ and the droid displays the small hologram for them.

Han is shakily visible, glitching in and out, but it’s undeniably him. The little recording of Han says, “There’s some kind of kid here— Force-sensitive kind of kid, but she’s freaking out about something and won’t let anyone off-planet. Seems like the kind of problem Luke might be able to help with and, I won’t lie to you, kid, I could really use the help myself.” Someone gets Han’s attention off-screen, and Han looks away for only a moment before his eyes dart back down. “The sooner the better, blondie, alright? Over and out.”

The hologram cuts out. Luke drums his fingers on the keypad, then turns to the pilot waiting beside him.

“Get Artoo,” he says, and the pilot runs off.

“You can’t be serious,” Leia says. “Look, _I’ll_ go—”

“You can’t help,” Luke points out. “If there’s a child there with abilities strong enough to enforce a technology outage of that magnitude, I need to go myself, and I need to go now.”

“Luke,” Leia says sharply. He turns to meet her eye, finally, and she’s stern, but not as firm as he feels. There’s only so long he can do this, after all, and he’s not about to waste time or— or show weakness before he absolutely has to.

“I can do this,” Luke tells her. “I have to do this.” He squeezes her hand, then pulls it off his arm. “Leia, it’s _fine.”_

“I’m going to kick your _ass_ when you get back here,” Leia growls at him. R2-D2 comes whirring up to them, already beeping wildly. Two other droids hoist him up and into _Red Five._

“Don’t tell Din _anything,”_ Luke warns her. A different droid comes whirling up with his flight suit, and Luke hurries to take it, stripping off the clothes he’d worn that morning with Leia, tugging on his body stocking, his flight suit, his gear. Leia helps him into his equipment, then kisses him on the cheek.

“Please be careful,” Leia says. Luke takes his helmet when she passes it to him before he hoists himself up into his ship. Before he takes his seat, she passes him his lightsaber. He hooks it inside his flight suit. “And bring Han back in one piece, _please._ I’m going to need him.”

Luke salutes her. Her laugh makes him laugh, and he climbs into his starfighter with a lighter heart than he’s had in months. He’s not _good,_ not yet, but he’s _going_ to be, he thinks. He’s on the way, at least.

Han’s coordinates are already patched through into the X-wing, and Luke doesn’t waste time in rolling out and taking off. R2-D2 chirps at him, but Luke brushes him off.

“We’ll be back in no time,” Luke assures him. “I’m doing fine.”

Flying is one of the best feelings Luke has, enough that he doesn’t know another way to describe the emotion. He knows that _flying_ isn’t really an emotion, so much, but it’s more than joy and different than satisfaction and it’s close to being at peace, but it’s not _quite_ that. It’s too exhilarating to be that. Guiding himself and his ship through the starscape of space to Han’s coordinates settles him in a way that being in a damp greenhouse never could. Space feels more like home than anyplace else.

The planet Han has summoned Luke to is called Ch’a Mowa’a, according to R2-D2, and there have been no flights in or out of the planet’s hubs and docks for a week now — except the _Millennium Falcon,_ having landed earlier that day. Han on one of his side trips, Luke is sure, and he’s always getting into trouble somehow. Luke suspects Han is more Force-sensitive than he lets on, but he’s also obviously Force-sensitive enough to shield himself from Luke’s deeper probing.

Ch’a Mowa’a lets Luke’s ship into orbit, too. The _Red Five_ breaks through the atmosphere, much like the _Falcon_ must have this morning while Leia and Luke were walking in the light of dawn. It unsettles him a bit, to think of the chaos that can happen while he’s unaware. With his chest and stomach and head unsettled, he guides his ship towards Han’s beacon.

He lands near the _Falcon,_ but the beacon Han sent out is a bit of a ways east from the ship’s docking point. Luke’s not in the mood to walk far — something R2-D2 points out, but Luke waves him off.

The strength of the Force rolling off whoever this kid is is powerful enough that it acts like more of a beacon to Luke than Han’s actual beacon has, once they’ve landed. Luke is drawn to them, but he can feel, too, the Darkness swirling close by. It’s hard to resist, for people as sensitive as he is. As they must be.

As his child might be, Luke thinks to himself, before forcibly clearing his mind. Years of training himself in meditation can’t go to waste when he actually needs them; he forces peace into his mind, then reinforces it, bricking himself up into a blank machine of Force energy.

There are no threats on the path to the kid, but he finds her in a small house surrounded by hovering rocks and sticks and knives and blades and shovels — all sorts of miscellaneous weaponry and garden equipment, just floating in drifting circles around a little brick hole in the ground.

Luke calls inside, “Hello?”

A rock comes crashing at him from his left. Luke ducks, avoiding it narrowly, using the Force to guide it past his head and above it, but one of the windows shatters beside the front door.

“I want to help you!” Luke calls out. “I’m here to help. I have powers like you have.”

The rocks and blades swirl again, but they don’t draw too close.

“How do you stop it?” a small voice asks.

“Let me come in and I’ll show you,” Luke offers. For a long moment, nothing happens. Then, though, the door creaks open. It’s just a sliver, at first, but the sliver widens, further and further until the door is agape and Luke can see deep inside the home. When he steps into the living room of the home, he can see Han and Chewbacca both kneeling in the corner, their hands raised over their heads. Han’s own blaster and Chewbacca’s own bowcaster are floating behind their heads, aimed at the crowns of their skulls.

“I’ve never been happier to see you, kid,” Han says. The blaster pushes into the back of his head.

“Shut up!” the small voice screams. Luke pulls his attention away from Han and Chewbacca to find the child — a small, curled-up thing. She’s pushed up in the space underneath the house’s single staircase; her eyes are wild, brown and wide, and she watches Luke without blinking. “You said you could help me.”

“I can,” Luke tells her. He lets his lightsaber retract, setting it back on his belt slowly as the child watches him, eyes sharp. “Can I show you?”

For a long while, she doesn’t move, just staring at him. Surveying him, he knows. Then, though, she nods.

Luke lifts his hand, just to give her the visual. It always helps his students to see him using his hands to manipulate the Force; it makes it all the more tangible for them, easier to understand, easier to seek out and learn and feel while it’s still unfamiliar.

He lifts one of the stones hovering beside the child’s head out of her control. They can both feel the shift in the Force as he does it, and her wide eyes find his again, bewildered, trusting, terrified. Luke pulls the rock away from the girl, then another rock, then another. Plucking one thing out of the air at a time and setting them away at a distance while the girl watches him, unmoving, silent, horrified — solitary, like he’s been.

Like he’s been forcing himself to be, when there’s been people reaching out to _him_ this entire time. They want to share the burden, make things easier. Luke feels absurd for not seeing it until it was shoved in his face, but here he is all the same.

“I have a school,” Luke tells her. “It’s full of children like you, all learning how to use the Force.”

“The Force?” she asks.

“That’s what you feel,” Luke says. “All around you. That power you feel, that’s called the Force.”

Her huge eyes well up with tears; she blinks them away, but they roll down her cheeks all the same. She can’t be any older than seven, he thinks, if her humanoid species ages like his own. No more than a baby, basically.

“I don’t like it,” she tells him.

“It feels scary,” he agrees. “I know it does. But you can learn how to use it like you use your own hands.” He reaches out to her with both hands, flexing his fingers. It takes a moment, but she reciprocates, reaching out in kind to put her hands into his. He draws her into his lap, and everything still floating in and around the house comes crashing down as she sobs into his chest. Her little arms grip him tight, and he holds her back, rocking her back and forth when she can’t catch her breath.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. Luke scoops up the tiny girl and stands.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he assures her. “Just breathe, it’s all okay.”

Behind him, Luke can feel Han and Chewbacca both getting to their feet. The clatter of their weapons being lifted is quiet, but it startles them both all the same, and the girl especially. Everything in the room flies into the air — rocks, shattered bits of glass, furniture, weapons, splintered bits of wood and brick, and _them._ Luke tries to grab control back, to pull the Force energy in the room back to himself, but something hits him hard in the back of the head. Luke only has a second where he blinks, stunned, before everything goes black.

* * *

Luke becomes aware in fragments, at first.

There’s the sterile smell of their medical building, creeping into his consciousness. He hears distant sounds, but none close enough to distinguish. He reaches for the Force on instinct and is relieved to find it. He’s relieved, too, to feel that same energy inside him he’d felt this morning, his own child still thrumming away with life, stronger than even he thinks he is.

Once Luke opens his eyes, everything hits him at once. He’s exhausted, his head hurts, his back aches, his stomach is turning. Slowly, he inhales, letting his lungs fill until they hurt, too, as he stares at the peach-tiled ceiling over his head.

“Hey,” a familiar voice says. It’s modulated, but still, Luke would know it either way, any way that it came. He turns his head to see Din sitting beside him. He only gets to look at them for a moment before the movement of shifting catches up to his stomach, a wave of nausea washing over him. Din must see it in his face, because they’re on their feet in an instant to help Luke sit up. His head spins; Din gives him a metal basin just in time for Luke to empty the meagre contents of his stomach into it.

Miserable, Luke coughs to clear his throat. Din’s gloved hand rubs his back for a moment before it vanishes. Luke is about to turn and reach for them when their hand returns, without their glove this time, slipping under Luke’s thin sterile gown. Their palm is warm as they stroke up and down Luke’s back, slowly, supporting his weight with their shoulder. Luke lets his face fall to rest in the crook of Din’s neck. The crease of their helmet presses hard into his forehead, but it’s almost soothing.

“Feeling better?” Din asks. Luke shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Come on, lay back down, get some more rest.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke tells them. He knows he must have been evaluated, he _knows,_ and so _Din_ must know, and they’re probably angry, angry at Luke and angry that—

“What’s going on?” Din asks. “What are you sorry for? Your face— Luke, you’re going to be alright. Your head’s going to heal up just fine.” Din’s thumb traces a circle near one of the center knobs of Luke’s spine. “You should’ve brought me with you. You could’ve used back-up. Seeing Han try to carry you past me to medical isn’t exactly my idea of a nice afternoon.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke says again. Din turns towards the door; Luke feels the edge of their helmet slide. “I didn’t think it was going to— be any worse than normal. It wasn’t, really.” He pushes away from Din. His forehead’s slick, wet with sweat, and he wipes it with the back of his wrist. “Is the girl okay? Han didn’t hurt her, did he?”

“Nobody’s hurt,” Din assures him. They hold Luke up, fix his pillows behind him, help him to lean back. They look to the door again. For a long moment, they don’t move; then, though, they turn back to Luke, reaching up to pull their helmet up and off. Luke reaches out, and Din lets him cup their face in his hand, thumb stroking under Din’s eye. Between Din’s brown eyes and Leia’s, Luke sees good odds for his own child to have those same brown eyes, the eyes his mother may have had.

“I’m so sorry, Din,” Luke confesses again.

“You don’t have to keep saying that,” Din says. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I should’ve told you,” Luke says, and Din starts to ask, “Tell me what?” but Luke says, “No, just— Let me.”

Luke withdraws from Din again, planting his face in his hands, rubbing at his eyes. In his peripherals, he sees Din pull their other glove off. Their bare hands are so close, for a moment, before one of them lifts out of view; they settle it in Luke’s hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.

“I’m having a baby,” Luke tells him. In the silence, he pushes at his own eyes, for a moment, until starbursts explode in the darkness and he has to pull them away. Still, he can’t bring himself to look at Din as he says, “Sorry, _we_ are.”

“We are?” Din asks. Their voice is soft. Luke inhales again, as deep as he did before, and looks up to Din’s face. Those warm brown eyes bake right into him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Luke admits. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t expect to— I didn’t expect this.”

“I— No,” Din says. “No, I— didn’t either.” They don’t say anything for a long moment, a _long_ moment; they’re still just staring at Luke’s face. Luke can’t help but stare back, but his impatience is eating at him.

“Leia’s pregnant, too,” Luke tells him. “She told me this morning.”

Din doesn’t say anything to that, but they do start to smile. Luke’s chest lifts, his excitement starting to rise again, lighter and lighter. He sees Din’s vulnerability in taking their helmet off here, in a public place, and matches it, pushing his blankets down and tugging his thin gown up. Din reaches out with one bare hand, hesitates. Their fingers curl up so close to Luke’s skin but still, untouched. Luke’s tired of being untouched; he’s sick of feeling like an island.

Luke reaches out and takes Din by the wrist, pulls their hand until their palm and fingers press flat to his skin. They spread their fingers out, stroking slowly, slipping away from Luke’s hold to explore his body and feel the differences Luke has been hiding from them. Luke closes his eyes, dropping his head. Both of them settle, into each other and in their energy; the Force gentles around them for the first time in a long while.

“Is this what you’ve been keeping from me?” Din asks.

“I’m sorry,” Luke says again.

“Don’t be sorry,” Din says. “Don’t be _sorry,_ Luke.” They pull Luke in close, until they’re on the bed and Luke’s in their lap, letting himself be consumed, just for a moment. “Is this something you want?”

“Is this something _you—”_

“Luke,” Din says.

Luke stops for a moment. He hesitates, but only in that instant. After that, he says, “Yes.”

“Yes?” Din asks. They cup Luke’s chin in their hand, pulling his attention up.

“Yes, I want this,” Luke tells them. “But I don’t want to lose you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Din promises him. “Luke, you’ve barely been talking to me lately. You’ve barely been talking to _anybody,_ I’ve been worried about you, you know? I thought you were unhappy, I didn’t know how to help you.” Din’s thumb sweeps over Luke’s lips, settles at the center of them. They press in, a bit. “I didn’t know what to do. Do you know how much better this is than— than _any_ of the alternatives?”

Luke frowns at them. “Did you think I was upset with you?”

“I didn’t know what to think,” Din says. “I thought something was wrong, and you were pulling away, I didn’t know if I’d done something, maybe.” They pause, then say, “I mean, I did. And I’m sorry—”

Luke laughs. Din stops, startled.

“You _did_ do something,” Luke agrees. The comment makes Din smile, too, then laugh themselves. It leaves quickly, but it’s there all the same.

Din’s expression flickers, for a moment. Luke can practically see them thinking, see the gears turning in their head behind their eyes. He _loves_ them, loves them more than he thought he could love another person, and that’s part of what terrifies him so deeply. If Luke doesn’t exist just to fulfill some Jedi destiny — if maybe he exists to do human things, too, like fall in love, or have children — then everything he’s done before now has been under all the wrong impressions, the incorrect presumptions.

Still, Luke has always been better at just doing what he wants to do. Destiny or not, he wants Din, and he wants their baby, and he’s got it all in his grasp. He’s going to reach out, and he’s _going_ to hold on.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Luke says. “I still don’t think I do.”

“Do you want to have it?” Din asks. “Them. You’re sure?”

“I am,” Luke tells him.

“Then we’ll figure it out,” Din says. “What’s one more? The kid we’ve got is doing just fine.”

“You’re the one who takes care of him,” Luke points out. Din rubs over Luke’s back, for a moment, before their hand slides around to cup Luke’s chin and lift his face to let their eyes meet again.

“He’s your kid as much as he is mine. And you take care of kids every day,” Din says. “Jedi Master Skywalker. You know they think there’s nothing you can’t do?”

“People think a lot of things about me,” Luke says.

“I think they’re right,” Din tells him. “I really think you can do anything you put your mind to. I think that’s part of what makes you so special.”

“I’m not,” Luke says, but he feels his face get hot all the same, and Din pushes in to kiss his cheek, the corner of his lips, the center of his mouth, their noses brushing. 

“You make me so happy,” Din breathes, quiet into the space between them. Their helmet is still set aside, their mess of hair rumpled by the helmet sliding along Luke’s cheek as they lift their head. “I try not to want the things I want but I— I want them. I want you.” They turn Luke closer, pull him in. Their eyes are so close when they say, “I haven’t had a family in so long. You have to know how happy I am to have one here with you.”

Luke nods. “I didn’t— I didn’t think I’d even live this long. After I left Tatooine, I thought I’d die fighting Vader, and now, every day feels— borrowed.” Luke swallows, looks down. It’s only a moment before he feels the pull to look at Din again, and he’s comforted there. He can trust Din more than anyone, he thinks, and it’s with that in mind that he says, “I don’t feel that way anymore. I finally feel like I’m allowed to want something for myself.”

“We can,” Din promises him. They take Luke’s android hand and flesh hand both and pull them to their mouth, kissing his knuckles. When they lift their head, they add, “I wish you had told me. I wish you had told me _before_ going off-planet and getting yourself knocked out.”

“I can’t predict the future,” Luke reminds them. Din squeezes his hands, only lightly. “I’m sorry. I wish I had told you, too. I just couldn’t. I just— I didn’t want to ruin everything.”

 _“You_ couldn’t ruin anything,” Din tells him. “And _this_ doesn’t ruin anything, I promise you. I _promise_ you.”

Luke laughs, unable to process the emotion as anything more than something overwhelmingly huge, making his hands shake and his whole body flush hot. For a moment, Luke is just overjoyed to have _this._

“I don’t know how long we have,” Luke tells them. “Before the baby. And I don’t know… I haven’t been examined.”

“We will,” Din assures him, “I’ll make sure you’re healthy.” Din strokes his face with the back of their hand, their touch light. Luke is grounded, more than he thinks he has been ever. _Ever._ “You are my family. You and our children mean more to me than I can put into words. I would do anything for you.”

“Can I just say ‘same?’” Luke asks. “Because I feel the same about you,” he says, and Din smiles until they laugh. They pull Luke in, kissing him on the forehead, between the eyes, on the lips.

The door beeps as a droid accesses it, and Din withdraws to pull their helmet back on. Luke misses their touch, but knowing without a doubt that he’ll have it again soon — that he will never be without it — makes him feel like he could endure anything else to come.

Han comes in with the droid, Leia right behind him, and the way they look at Din before Luke makes Luke wonder what actually happened when Han got them back on Yavin. He reaches out, and Leia goes to his side, taking his hand and kissing his forehead.

“Han told me that sweet little girl knocked you out,” Leia says, smiling. He can feel her worry simmering under her surface, but she doesn’t let it show, so he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Sounds about right, doesn’t it?”

“You’re a terrible sister,” Luke says. He glances from her to Din, then back. “Did you tell Han?”

“Which part?” Leia asks.

“The part where I’m going to be a dad?” Han asks. Din and Luke both look to him, and he says, “Yeah, she told me. I’ll let you know when it hits me.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out when you hit the roof,” Leia comments backwards to him.

“I meant the part where I’m going to be a dad,” Luke says. “But I’m glad to be an uncle, too.”

Han stares down at him. After a moment, he huffs, then says, “Kid, I am gonna kill you _myself._ What the— What are you doing chasing me off-planet when you’re—” He motions wildly at Luke with one hand. “You know. Like _that.”_

“You _called_ for my help!” Luke reminds him.

“I didn’t know you were _delicate,”_ Han points out. Luke can see Din’s shoulders stiffen; even if he can’t see their face, he assumes their brow is furrowing, because he knows their face well enough by now.

“He’s not delicate,” Din says.

 _“You_ can’t be happy he’s putting himself in danger,” Han points out. “Wait, is that why you lost it when you saw me hauling him into medical?”

Luke looks to Din again, but Din — carefully — does not look back to him. “I only just found out.”

“Oh,” Han says. “Ahh. I— Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” Din says.

“You’re a real wordsmith today,” Leia tells Han. She backs off when the medical droid chirps at her to move so they can better access Luke’s arm. He lets himself be examined, poked, and prodded.

Din, still visibly stiff, asks the droid, “Can we have a full examination done of Luke, please?”

The droid chirps at them, then at Luke to let him know that new droid would be in next. Din looks hopelessly to Luke, who translates, “They said no problem.”

“I just want to make sure everything’s going to be alright,” Din tells him. They take Luke’s hand in theirs, and Luke thinks again of Han asking Din _is that why you lost it,_ thinks of how he’d feel if he saw someone else bringing Din in unconscious to medical, thinks about if it was Din and Grogu, his partner and his child.

Overwhelmed, he realizes even more that he has a partner and a child, yes, but they’re a _family._ He has a family and all he’s doing is adding to it. All that much isn’t really changing.

“We can see you again later,” Leia tells him. She kisses the top of his head. “You feel better, Luke.”

“We’ll bring you something better to eat tonight than the slop they serve here,” Han assures him, crouching down to kiss Luke’s cheek, too. Din moves to stand, as well, but Luke reaches out and catches their hand.

“Don’t go,” Luke asks, and Din sits back at Luke’s side again. They don’t leave.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) comment to chat with me, or talk with me about this fic on Twitter at [@nicole__mello](https://twitter.com/nicole__mello) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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